Grace Bascope

Resident Research Associate

Grace left the classroom after years of teaching Anthropology and conducting field schools in Yucatán, México with both Texas Christian University and University of North Texas. Though specializing in Medical Anthropology, her dissertation work (The Household Ecology of Disease Transmission: Childhood Illness in a Yucatán Maya Community) pulled her toward exploring the environment through the eyes of collaborating community members. This led to facilitating place-based learning programs and gathering ethno-environmental data. Current qualitative research focuses on how diminishing corn cultivation, craft production from local forest resources and worldwide economic realities articulate to impact construction of Yucatec Maya cultural identity. Commitment to local Sense of Place learning has also led her to explore how indigenous peoples of North Texas utilized the land prior to European contact.